After five days of torturing, unexplained absence, to talk of nothing but fishing, as if his life depended on it! Girard himself had wondered, but he accepted the position allotted to him as a matter of course. He had thought, from Justin’s manner to-day, that he was to know something of his affairs; but if Justin did not choose to confide in him, that was all right. Possibly the affairs were all right, too; they were none of his business, anyway.
Suddenly a word in the fishing conversation caught the ears of the two who were sitting in the dining-room, in a momentary pause.
“That was the kind Lawson Barr used when he went down on the Susquehanna. By the way, I hear that he’s dead.”
Lawson! Dosia’s face changed as if a whip had flicked across it, and then trembled back into its normal quiet. William leaned a little nearer, his eyes curiously scanning her.
“No; what?”
“He’s dead.”
“Lawson dead! Not Lawson?” Her dry lips illy formed the words.
“Yes, Dosia—don’t look like that—don’t let them see in there, Girard is looking at you; turn your face toward me. Leverich told us, coming up to-night. Lawson died a week ago.”
“How?”